Christian Engineering Education Conference
CEEC-2004

Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23-25, 2004

Those who belong to Caesar’s household

Paige Gibbs
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

This paper reports on the insights of committed Christians, engineering educators,
at a state sponsored university about “Responding to Academic Culture: Reject,
Accept or Engage? “ Their Christianity is apparent to their colleagues and
students even though they are not actively "witnessing.” Similar to
those belonging to Caesar’s household who sent their greetings to the Philippians
(Ph 4:21)these educators serve in an environment that at best is inattentive,
at worst hostile to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.. The paper addresses the integration
of Christianity in these educators’ teaching, research and participation
in their discipline and the academy. How is their faith apparent to their colleagues
and students? What makes Christian engineering faculty different from the rest?
What are the surprising aspects? Are the boundaries for the integration of a Christian
perspective with teaching an engineering discipline institutional, legal or perceived?
The insights will be drawn using an instrument of several open ended queries to
collect data. Some of the topics to be addressed are: discourse, expectations
of the institution, encouragement to new faculty. A literature review disclosed
a paucity of research in any discipline about this area of investigation.